


Strangers Rushing Past (Just Trying To Get Home)

by Lesbianna



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (that’s just canon Isabelle), BAMF Isabelle Lightwood, Demons, Gen, Head of the Institute Isabelle Lightwood, Inspired by Fanfiction, Mentions of canon-typical violence, fic of a fic, finale coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18836134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbianna/pseuds/Lesbianna
Summary: “She looks down at the spot on her arm, which when she is in combat, is usually covered by her bracelet. The skin is bare - as it always has been, but the rune that should have been there still feels like a loss a year later.Sometimes she thinks it would have been easier if Clary had just died.”ORthe third chapter in This Is The Coda That Never Ends - Simon does what Jace asks and gets Isabelle.





	Strangers Rushing Past (Just Trying To Get Home)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [This Is the Coda That Never Ends...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740635) by [ByTheAngell (SomeLittleInfamy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeLittleInfamy/pseuds/ByTheAngell). 



> Honestly, I never thought I’d get as invested in Shadowhunters as I did. I guess I’m writing fic about that now.
> 
> This is Isabelle’s point of view in my version of the possible third chapter in ByTheAngell’s coda fic (hope you like it, ByTheAngell!)
> 
> Title is from the second verse of Freya Ridings’ song Lost Without You, which isn’t really relevant to the story except the song was on the show and also is very beautiful.

Isabelle is sitting at her office desk, finally finishing reading through another report, and she decides she can take a break for a few minutes. 

From one of the drawers she takes out a leather-bound notebook, and flicks through the pages. Different headings jump into her eyes - _sweating out yin-fen, therapy groups, rehabilition_. This is just her own project so far - no one except Simon even knows about it. She wants to tell her mother and Jace and Alec sometime soon, but she wants to have a bit more than a half-cooked idea. She’s been reading a lot of mundane books ever since she started therapy, mostly about addiction. The mundies really do have a lot of material there - and upon reading about how addiction is ‘ _the absence of connection_ ’ she started thinking about how even though the group therapy is great, they all think she’s a recovering heroin addict. How does the fact that she has to remain silent about the key aspects of her addiction - that she used to go to the Night Children and let them bite her, that even now, she’s dating one of the Night Children and the knowledge of the high Simon could give her is sometimes almost enough to make her give up on everything - her recovery, her position, her happiness - to chase that incredible high... how does that affect her progress? And then she’d had the idea. Treatment for Yin Fen addicts. Some of it would include mundies - Simon’s told her about the bleeder den he went to once, and she’d seen Heidi. Heidi had been so lonely and desperate for a high that it had killed her. Heidi had known about the Shadow World, and it had led Isabelle down a rabbit hole of attempting to figure out whether mundanes with the Sight were more likely to become addicts. Getting humans out of the bleeder dens and connected to the world again... the idea makes her happy. It gives her meaning. Purpose. She doesn’t know entirely how to execute it though, which is a problem. She’s been sitting on her idea for almost a year by now, which isn’t like her. 

She looks down at the spot on her arm, which when she is in combat, is usually covered by her bracelet. The skin is bare - as it always has been, but the rune that should have been there still feels like a loss a year later.

Sometimes she thinks it would have been easier if Clary had just died. Then it would have been easier to mourn and move on, the way Shadowhunters have to do every day. You either fight for them while they’re alive or you mourn them when they’re dead. You go to Edom and back for them - but they can’t do that for Clary. 

She pushes her thoughts away. She’s expecting Andrew Underhill to report back in a few minutes with what he found out about that demon attack on that street in Manhattan last night. With any luck, tonight she’ll be having a romantic dinner with her boyfriend - she can’t wait to taste what Maia has cooked up in that new restaurant of hers - and by midnight be out sending a few more slimy scaly things back home. It’s not strictly necessary for her to still be out in the field as the head of the Institute but she still enjoys a good fight, just like she also helps out the new Weapons Master every once in a while. Her replacement is still ridiculously in awe of her, even though it’s been a little over a year since she re-forged the legendary sword Glorious in, well, all its glory. 

As though she summoned it from her earlier thoughts, there’s a knock on the door, and then voices talking loudly outside. 

“Come in,” she calls, as she closes her notebook and throws it haphazardly into the drawer again.

The door opens. Underhill and Simon step inside. 

She furrows her brows lightly and stands up and walks around the table to shake both their hands - she’d thought Simon was aware she wouldn’t be ready for dinner for at least half an hour. He looks frazzled which is impressive, considering he neither breathes nor sweats. 

“Uh, Andrew,” she says to the other man, deciding that Simon’s face doesn’t look like someone has died, but he doesn’t look like he really wants to leave her side either. “Do you have your report for me?” 

Andrew nods, only glancing at Simon for a moment before he  launches into a concise, detailed explanation of the events the other night, as he hands her a folder. She flicks through the pages detailing the victims as she listens. At first it had been assumed the mundanes had found a warlock who had summoned a demon for them - sometimes mundanes could be stupid like that, playing with forces they had no business going anywhere near - but when Lorenzo Rey had been called to the scene to identify the warlock from the traces of magic, he had been unable to recognize it at all. 

“He said the magic was unstable, as though whoever wielded it didn’t mean to summon a demon, though the amount of steps involved in a summoning speaks to the contrary.” Andrew said, and continued, “the fact that the magic isn’t traceable to any specific warlock could possibly be explained by the caster being a warlock _child,_ though Lorenzo

claims that is unlikely - the warlocks have systems in place to find any wayward warlock children long before they have grown enough into their magic to summon a demon.”

Isabelle nods. “Unlikely doesn’t mean impossible,” she says, and she thinks of Iris Rouse.

“The Shadowhunters out on patrol killed the demon before it could kill more mundanes than were in the building. They’re still working to figure out what demon exactly it was, it’s possible that will give a lead in regards to the warlock child. Lorenzo said he’d get some warlocks from the Spiral Labyrinth to investigate this case as well.” 

Simon, who still looks frazzled and is running his hand through his hair over and over again, impatiently says, “yes, yes, I’d imagine it’s a case near and dear to their hearts. Isabelle, we really need to talk!”

Suddenly, she feels her heart beating in her throat, and she sends Andrew a glance and one of her gracious smiles. “Thank you for your time Andrew, you’re thorough as ever.”

Andrew nods and looks curiously at Simon again, before he turns and leaves the office. 

She grabs Simon’s hand again. 

“What’s going on? What’s happened?”

She’s pretty sure if Simon wasn’t already white-faced from his vampirism, he would be right now. “Clary,” he said. “Something happened with Clary.”

Despite his earlier hurry to talk to her, it doesn’t seem like he can get out any more words than that, and Isabelle feels the dread curling like a beast in her stomach. She reminds herself that if Clary was dead or dying, Simon wouldn’t have let Andrew talk first, but it hardly helps. There are things worse than death. 

“Simon, what’s going on?”

Simon looks at her. “Jace said to get you - I think he should explain, but - but it’s good news Izzy.”

She stares at him wildly for a second, then she drags him out of the room, her heart pounding and her wrist burning in the shape of a rune she never got. “Take me to Jace. Right now.” 


End file.
